Right, Charlie

David Hewitt looks back on the life of the Blackpool Tower Circus clown whose archive is a cornerstone of the town's new showbiz museum

- David Hewitt

It's a classic bit of television Charlie. He's trying to play a tune and although he's failing - badly - you just know he'd succeed if only he used a proper instrument and not the big white kitchen sink he is holding up to his lips. Children all around are shaking with laughter. And the adults are shaking, too. Making them do that was Charlie Cairoli's job, of course. And it was one he performed very well, most famously at Blackpool Tower Circus. Now, his clowning life is being celebrated in fine style in the town he made his home.

Charlie was born near Milan, in 1910, the son of parents from famous French circus families, and he began performing at the age of seven. Before long he was travelling all over Europe.

The first place he made an impression was the Cirque Medrano in Paris, which was known as the “Temple of Clowning”. That was also where he made an impression on Violetta Fratellini, who was from a circus family herself, and who in 1934 became his wife.

Charlie also performed in Munich, at the Circus Krone, where Adolf Hitler was so impressed by his act that he gave him a gold watch. Normally a man of few words, on this subject Charlie was very frank. “Hitler nearly died laughing,” he said, much later. “I wish he had. It would have saved a lot of people a great deal of heartbreak and sorrow.”

It was in the summer before World War Two that Charlie made his debut at the tower. He would appear there every season for the next four decades, even going so far as to make Blackpool his home. And to the end of his days, he would speak with an accent that was a glorious mixture of France, Italy and north Lancashire.